Chapter 9: THE PROCESS OF THE UNARMED REVOLUTION
2. Set up counterpowers.
2.1. Pre-revolution
In the revolutionary process, the climax of the collapse of the old regime and the establishment of a revolutionary regime does not suddenly appear, but rather there are stages like a preliminary revolution (pre-revolution) leading up to that point. In other words, it is a situation where the ruling system that still exists and an unfinished system that serves as the framework of the revolutionary system coexist and compete with each other. This is called a "counter-power situation."
This situation will officially begin when the World Commons' Convention enacts the draft Charter of the World Commonwealth and declares the provisional establishment of the World Commonwealth. In response to this, once the formation and development of the Commons' Conventions in each region of each country is completed, some kind of primordial counterpower will be created at that stage. This is because each Commons'Convention itself is scheduled to become official governing body after the revolution.
However, in order to create such a situation of counter-power, it is necessary to have a wide range of people recognize the democratic legitimacy of the Commons' Conventions, and to create a groundswell that calls for the significance of the revolution and for participation in collective non-voting. I have to frankly admit that it is truly difficult.
First, in order to make people recognize that the Commons' Convention is the political institution that truly represents the majority, the key is whether the Commons' Convention can build up the numerical superiority to claim that it represents the majority including potential sympathizers.
Furthermore, an important accomplishment of the Commons' Conventions during the stage of the preliminary revolution is their counter-legislative activities. In particular, it is the establishment of a charter that would serve as the highest standard after the revolution. In addition, it is necessary to prepare a system design for an environmentally sustainable planned economy that does not rely on a monetary economy and other major basic laws at the stage of the revolution.
2.2. Implementing collective non-voting
After all, the most technically difficult task is organizing the collective non-voting that forms the core of a non-armed revolution. As mentioned above, the minimum number of votes required to win a public office election is intentionally set extremely low by law, so even a slight decrease in the abstention rate will have no effect on the legal validity of the election.
Therefore, it is necessary to organize abstentions to the point where the election is legally invalidated, but is this really possible? This is an unprecedented challenge in world history.
Although it is certainly possible in theory to carry out a collective non-vote that would completely invalidate all public office elections, it may not be possible in practice. However, even if public elections with extremely low voter turnout are legally valid, they lose political legitimacy.
In such a situation, there will be the possibility that the Commons' Conventions will lead the revolution to success with the support of popular actions such as street demonstrations. Therefore, as discussed in the previous chapter, the revolutionary method of collective non-voting does not have the property of being successful purely on its own, but depending on the time and situation of each country, it may be combined with methods such as popular uprisings.
In order to avoid such a revolutionary situation, established countries may introduce compulsory voting systems or strengthen the penalties for compulsory voting systems that have already been introduced. In this case, a movement of disobedience must be organized to abstain according to conscience and without fear of punishment.
The more abstainers there are, the more effectively it becomes impossible for the police and others to control abstentions, so it is essential to carry out public awareness campaigns to increase the number of abstainers.
2.3. Abstention as a political right
The barrier to implementing collective non-voting is the idea that abstaining is considered an abandonment of voters' duties. Indeed, according to the conventional wisdom of Western bourgeois political science, which has become popular throughout the world, voting is the sacred right of voters, and it is through our pure vote that we can carve out a future of hope. To abstain would be considered foolish and an abandonment of one's duty as a voter.
However, it is possible to distinguish between "lazy non-voting", which is simply due to political apathy, and "revolutionary abstention," which is a more active expression of intent toward revolution. It goes without saying that abstention as a new method of unarmed revolution is not "lazy non-voting,'' but "revolutionary abstention."
The pre-revolutionary popular assembly needs to effectively spread this new idea of abstention as a political right = revolutionary abstention throughout the world, and unless it succeeds in this, there will be no unarmed revolution.
2.4. Establishing the counter-power situation
In any case, as the abstention rate will increase in every public office election and the legitimacy of the established parliament and government is shaken, people will give up on the established parliament and government, which had lost the ability to deal with the increasingly exposed limitations of capitalism, and will begin to realize that the Commons' Conventions are our true political representative bodies. As a result, there will be a final collective non-voting, as an act of all-out no-confidence in the established parliament and government, that will result in the failure of the parliament and government.
This does not mean that the revolution is complete, but that the counter-power situation as a pre-revolution has been established, and we can finally stand at the starting point of the revolution.
In many countries, constitutional provisions have been made in advance to ensure that a power vacuum is not created by allowing the previous government to continue or appointing a substitute government unless a new government is formed for some reason after an election. Even if a new government is not formed due to collective non-voting, there is a system in place that allows the old regime to legally remain in place.
It can be predicted that in most cases, the remaining old regime will refuse to transfer power to the Commons' Convention and will do everything in its power to prevent the establishment of a revolutionary admistration. Therefore, we must consider the process that goes beyond that.
